Red Sox eliminate Orioles in AL East

It is August 10 and the Orioles have been officially eliminated in the AL East race. It’s true. Friday night’s blowout loss to the Red Sox pushed the O’s to 46 1/2 games back with 46 to play. Also, the Orioles can not have a winning season. Friday was their 81st loss. They’re 35-81. Yikes.

It’s not all bad news though. The O’s continued to focus on the future Friday by calling up outfield prospect Cedric Mullins. He played center field in his big league debut with Adam Jones sliding over to right. It was Jones’ first game at a position other than center field (or DH) since 2007. And, in his big league debut, Mullins had a whale of a game. He went 3 for 4 with two doubles and two runs driven in.

Guzman makes history against Yankees

Have yourself a night, Ronald Guzman. The Rangers’ rookie first baseman swatted three home runs against the Yankees on Friday night. He did it with his family in attendance at Yankee Stadium as well.

A few things about Guzman’s performance:

He is the second player in eight days with a three-homer game against the Yankees. (Steve Pearce did it last Thursday.)

He is the first player in history with a home run in each of his first four career games against the Yankees.

He has six homers in four games against the Yankees this year, and six homers in 83 games against everyone else.

Not a bad night at the ballpark for Mr. Guzman. Or the Rangers, for that matter. They won for the 10th time in their last 14 games Friday night.

Carpenter goes deep again

If the Cardinals had, say, five more wins this season, Matt Carpenter would be runaway NL MVP, right? Right. Carpenter went deep again Friday night. It is his NL-leading 32nd home run of the season and his sixth homer in his last seven games.

Since bottoming out at .140/.286/.272 on May 15, Carpenter has hit an insane .334/.434/.730 with 28 doubles and 29 home runs in 76 games. He’s also hit 15 home runs in his last 24 games. Last year, during his 59-homer campaign, Giancarlo Stanton hit 17 home runs during his best 24-game stretch. Carpenter is not far off that pace at all.

Alas, despite Carpenter’s heroics, the Cardinals remain 6 1/2 games back in the NL Central and 3 1/2 games back of the second wild card spot. They need to start stringing together some wins to have a shot at the postseason.

Pujols reaches milestone with Angels

Thanks to home runs by Kole Calhoun and Justin Upton, the Angels came back to beat the A’s on Friday. And, during that game, Albert Pujols recorded his 1,000th base hit with the Angels. Here’s the video:

Dodgers bullpen blows first game without Jansen

The Dodgers will be without All-World closer Kenley Jansen the next few weeks due to an irregular heartbeat, and, on Friday, the bullpen blew the first game since Jansen was placed on the disabled list. Lefty Zac Rosscup served up a go-ahead two-run home run to rookie Ryan McMahon in the seventh inning.

Would Jansen have faced McMahon with a one-run lead in the seventh? Nope. But Scott Alexander might’ve, and Alexander is now among the guys who will handle ninth-inning duty with Jansen sidelined. Instead of having Alexander, a ground ball machine, face McMahon in the seventh, he was being saved for later in the game. Losing Jansen has an impact on every inning, not just the ninth.

Mariners beat Astros in battle of amazing throwbacks

Good game and good uniforms down at Minute Maid Park on Friday. The Mariners and Astros did battle while sporting 1979 throwbacks uniforms. Check it out:

Edwin Diaz struck out two in a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his MLB-leading 44th save. Friday was game No. 117 for the Mariners, putting Diaz on pace for 61 saves. The single-season record is 62 saved by Francisco Rodriguez with the 2008 Angels. Going to be a close race.

Snell perfect before reaching pitch limit

In his second start back from the disabled list, All-Star southpaw Blake Snell was perfect. At least until he hit his pitch limit. Snell went 15 up, 15 down with six strikeouts against the Blue Jays before being removed with 47 pitches.

Snell threw 59 pitches in his first start back from a shoulder issue, and he was expected to get stretched out to 75 pitches or so Friday, but manager Kevin Cash decided against it. After the game Cash said he didn’t want to push his ace too hard so soon after returning from the disabled list. Understandable.

Most Commented

Tags

About This Theme

Drego

Drego is a 4 columns magazine style free WordPress theme that suitable for news or portal blog site. The theme is fully tested and compatible with latest WordPress 4.3 and it is also supported BuddyPress, Woocommerce and BBPress. With Search Engine Optimize in mind, the theme packed with built in SEO Schema data markup and passed Google snippet test.